Andrew Marvell’s Poem to His Coy Mistress

Poems

In Andrew Marvell’s poem, “To His Coy Mistress,” Marvell starts out by saying how much he loves this girl that even time is not a matter, but halfway through he switches and starts to say that time is nearing and that basically if we do not do the deed now, then, “And your quaint honor turn to dust, And into ashes all my lust:” (29-30) In Ben Jonson’s poem, “To Celia,” Jonson begins by laying his game on thick and saying that we need to make love, but halfway through he changes his ways and starts saying that you should not care what others say lets do it, who cares if the maids find out or even your husband, lets just do it. These poems are both carpe diem poems which means to seize the day, and that is just what the writers and the speakers of these poems are doing.

Both poems start out in about the same manner, by trying to get the female “to be” with them, but for some reason halfway through they both take the same turn and that turn takes them straight into lust and wild erratic behavior. In Marvell’s poem he basically says that if I cannot have you those worms will the irony in this is that the male organ has been referenced to a phallic object like a worm. He also talks about your quaint honor turning to dust and along with it all my lust, the quaint honor that he is talking about is that girl’s vagina. He is telling her that now is our time to make love and if you do not do it with me now then when you are dead the one thing that you tried to hold on to will be gone.

Jonson does even worse; in his poem the speaker is trying to seduce a married woman. He tells her that fame and rumors are nothing